


We Were Both Young

by Linsky



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Angst, First Time, M/M, Pining, so many feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-02 10:35:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10216121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: Patrick’s met thirteen-year-old Jonny before. He doesn’t remember him looking so small.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whydisignuponthisgodforsakensite (AndrAIa_Matrix)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndrAIa_Matrix/gifts).



> A million thanks to whydisignuponthisgodforsakensite for bidding on me in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction and for making such an excellent request! Thanks also to coffeekristin for coming up with this idea in the first place, coffeekristin and mullsandmutts and especially Celly1995 for cheerleading and audiencing and betaing, aohatsu for listening to me talk, and svmadelyn for bringing us all together. It takes a village to make Jonny all tiny, apparently.
> 
> I didn't tag this for underage because while there's a temporary age difference, it is NOT A SEXUAL ONE. If this is a major squick for you and you're worried about it, feel free to send me a [tumblr](http://linskywords.tumblr.com/) message, and I can tell you spoilery things.
> 
> Title from Taylor Swift, of course.

Patrick’s had a lot of weird stuff turn up in his stall in the locker room over the years—embarrassing photos, shaving cream, glitter. It’s a hazard of sharing a locker room with a bunch of professional athletes who still think they’re children.

But none of it quite prepared him for the actual kid who’s standing there right now, looking weirdly like Jonny.

“What the f—” Patrick starts to say, then remembers his audience. “…freak, guys? Is this, like, Jonny’s cousin or something?”

The kid starts glaring more. Jesus. The family resemblance is _really_ intense.

“Wait, no one tell him,” Sharpy says gleefully. “This is too good.”

“Fuck off, Sharpy,” the kid says, and Patrick does a double-take because he sounds _so much_ like Jonny, if Jonny were in middle school.

“Do you know this kid?” Patrick asks Sharpy. “Hey, kid. How do you know Sharpy?”

“Um, Kaner,” Seabs says, even though Sharpy is waving him off. “That isn’t Tazer’s cousin. That’s Tazer.”

“Damn it, Seabs!” Sharpy says, but Patrick’s looking at the kid. The kid who…wow, who really does have Jonny’s eyes, and his jaw, and his cheekbones, and Patrick knows this face. He’s seen this face, remembers staring at it, when he was a little kid on the Junior Flyers, desperate to prove himself.

“Jonny?” he says, and the kid looks up at him, dark eyes flashing, defensive. They lock with Patrick’s. There’s a light blush on his cheeks.

“Yeah,” Jonny says.

***

“This is definitely unusual,” Stan says when they’re in his office a few minutes later. Q just keeps tilting his head and squinting, like he’s not seeing properly. “You say this just happened out of nowhere?”

“One minute, Tazer, the next…” Sharpy still sounds way too amused by this.

“You don’t know what might have triggered it?” Stan asks Jonny.

“No, sir,” Jonny says, ridiculously respectful, and that shouldn’t be anything new, coming from Jonny, except it’s making Patrick remember—

“Oh my god,” he says, a grin growing on his face. “You were already this much of a brownnoser when you were thirteen. I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

Jonny shoots him a look. Sharpy snorts behind him.

“I’ll have to make some calls,” Stan says. “See if there’s a discreet way to find out more.”

“Preferably before the game tonight,” Q says.

“I can still—” Jonny starts to say, but everyone in the room says, “No!” at the same time, and he stops, frowning at the ground.

“We’ll just take this one thing at a time,” Stan says. “At least we’re on a homestand. Kaner, maybe he could go home with you?”

“Huh?” Patrick says, just as Jonny says, “I don’t need—”

“You can’t live alone while you’re this age,” Stan says. “You could come home with me if you’d rather.”

Jonny’s eyes flash a little, and he mumbles something. Patrick tries to figure out if he feels weird about this. It’s still Jonny, but—

“You get the ki-id,” Sharpy singsongs into Patrick’s ear as they leave the office.

“Aren’t you about to have an actual kid, like, all the time?” Patrick says.

“Yeah, but mine won’t be able to talk back yet,” Sharpy says, which is—well, a good point, actually.

It’s weird walking out to the car. It’s nothing Patrick hasn’t done with grownup Jonny a million times, but that’s what makes it so weird. It’s almost like they’re just going out to lunch together or going to hang out at one of their condos, except that Jonny is all small. He doesn’t even fit into any of his clothing; they had to belt him into his jeans with literal string, and the cuffs keep getting caught under his feet while they walk.

Fuck. He really is tiny. He must have lost eight or ten inches, which means—

“Ha!” Patrick says, stopping next to him when they’re at the car and drawing his hand across from the top of Jonny’s head. “I’ve totally got like five inches on you right now, dude.”

Jonny makes a disgusted face. It looks sort of adorable on his tiny features, not that Patrick will ever tell him that. “Oh my God. Which one of us is supposed to be a kid right now?”

“Pretty sure it’s not the one driving the car,” Patrick says, going around to the driver’s seat. “Don’t forget to buckle your seatbelt.”

Jonny is already reaching for it, which Patrick knew he’d do—Jonny’s meticulous about putting on his seatbelt—and he gives Patrick a betrayed look. Patrick grins and pulls out of the spot.

They’re maybe a block or two away from the rink when Jonny bursts out with, “This is dumb. You can just take me home, you know. I’m not actually a kid.”

Patrick gives him a look for about as long as it’s safe to look away from the road. “Are you kidding? You’re like twelve.”

“I’m thir—” Jonny says, and then cuts off as Patrick starts to grin. “I mean,” he mumbles. “I think I’m older than that.”

“Yeah, thirteen isn’t actually a lot better than twelve,” Patrick says.

Jonny makes an exasperated noise. “I’m twenty-three, okay? I’ve lived alone for years.”

“Wait,” Patrick says. “Are you saying you don’t actually feel any different? Like, you’re just a kid on the outside?”

There’s a pause that goes on just a little too long. “Well—” Jonny says.

“Yeah, nice try,” Patrick says, and Jonny crosses his arms and looks out the window and doesn’t talk to Patrick for the rest of the drive.

Fortunately, Patrick has plenty of practice being around Jonny when he’s in a bad mood. He just waves Jonny towards the guest room and goes into the kitchen to start making lunch.

Jonny comes in a while later, looking pale and guilty. “Sorry,” he says, sitting down at the table. “This is just…really weird.”

“No big,” Patrick says. It’s really weird for him, too. He and Jonny had talked about watching a couple of episodes of _Mad Men_ to chill out before their pre-game naps today, but now he doesn’t know if Jonny even remembers that conversation.

“So, do you remember stuff?” he asks, when they sit down with their lunch.

Jonny glares at him. “Duh.”

“No, but, like, yesterday,” Patrick says. “Last week. Do you remember everything?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, though he sounds less sure than he did. “I remember. It just…I don’t know. It feels kind of weird.”

“You know who we all are and shit, though.”

“I knew who you were before,” Jonny says.

“Right.” It’s weird to think that this Jonny might remember twelve-year-old Patrick better than he remembers the current version. “Huh, I must look super weird to you now.”

“Um,” Jonny says, and Patrick realizes that he’s just handed Jonny, like, the most epic opening of all time. But Jonny doesn’t chirp him—he just stares at him, deer-in-the-headlights face, and doesn’t say anything.

There’s no reason for it to make Patrick uncomfortable, but it does—maybe just because it’s a reminder that this Jonny is not quite his Jonny. He clears his throat and gets up for more mustard. This is such a weird day.

***

There’s an extended debate about whether Jonny can come to the game. “No one’s going to know it’s me,” Jonny keeps saying, which, like, Patrick sort of did, but whatever. No one’s going to believe it, anyway.

“They’re going to think you have a son or something,” Patrick says, while they’re pinning up his old sweats for Jonny to wear because it didn’t occur to either of them to go to the store before it was too late.

“I can’t be my own son, dumbass, I’m way too old,” Jonny says, and for a minute it’s so much like fighting with normal Jonny that it makes Patrick dizzy.

They finally agree that Jonny can sit in the nosebleeds if he wears a baseball cap the whole time. “I still don’t see what’s wrong with the press box,” Jonny grumbles.

“Um, it has press in it, that’s what,” Patrick says.

“I’m great with the press,” Jonny says, and then Patrick has to laugh so much he can’t stand up for a minute there.

Jonny glares at him after that and won’t talk to him for the whole ride to the stadium. Patrick’s pretty sure it’s mostly anger about not being able to play, but he doesn’t call him on it. Being thirteen kind of sucks, if Patrick recalls correctly. Also, it’s Jonny.

He’s still being stonily silent when they stop in to see Stan before warmups. “I wish I had better news for you,” Stan says, and Patrick can see Jonny’s shoulders slump. “I’ve been talking to some discreet medical professionals, but none of them have ever heard of anything like this. We’ll keep trying, though.”

Jonny still doesn’t say anything when they’re out in the hallway again. This silence is sad, though, and not pissy—he’s sort of folded in on himself. Patrick wishes he could do something about it. He’d know what to do if it were his Jonny—get him riled up with a chirp, for one thing—but he doesn’t know what to do with this kid.

He’s so skinny. Patrick remembers looking up at him when they were twelve and thirteen and thinking that Jonny was huge, but he’s really not. Strong for his age, sure, but his arms and shoulders have none of the muscle mass that Patrick’s used to. Patrick suddenly feels nervous about sending him into the stands alone.

“Um, so I’ll see you after the game?” Patrick says.

“Yeah.” Jonny sounds quiet, bummed out in a way grownup Jonny would never show, and Patrick bites his lip.

“I mean,” he says, “if we don’t play so well without you that you have to go home out of humiliation,” and it’s weak, but it gets Jonny to look up, glaring.

“Fuck you,” he says, and Patrick grins, and ruffles his hair—Jonny ducks—and he feels better about things when he goes off to the locker room.

It’s still weird, though. He’s played without Jonny lots of times before. But it’s been a while, and this whole day has been out of left field. He keeps looking over to where Jonny should be, and every time he doesn’t see him, it rocks him a little.

It feels a little more normal by the time he’s on the ice. They’re playing the Sharks, and Patrick’s on a line with Sharpy and Bicks. The first period is shaky, but Patrick scores to start off the second, and then he scores again shorthanded in the third to win it for them—a gorgeous goal, the kind he lives for: a breakaway that feels like he’s flying down the ice, ten times faster than everyone else and so smooth the goalie doesn’t even have a chance.

He’s still buzzing on it when he’s in the locker room. The whole team is rowdy around him, high in the way a well-fought victory will get you. It’s fun to talk to the press on a night like this—they just want to know how he feels about his goals, and that’s easy. “Sure, it’s always better to play with Tazer than without him,” he says when one guy asks. “But we’re just going to keep holding the line for him and hope for a quick recovery.”

Jonny doesn’t show up until after the press is gone. Patrick put his name on the list for security—well, he told them to let in the little guy who looks weirdly like Jonathan Toews—but a part of him is expecting to have to go look for him after the game and find him sulking in a corner somewhere. So he’s not expecting it when Sharpy says, “Toes!”

Patrick turns around to find Jonny staring at him.

It’s not any of the stares he might have expected. It’s not pissy, or stubborn, or angry, or anything like that. It’s kind of…awed. Like Jonny’s lit up inside.

It hooks Patrick right underneath the ribcage, and he keeps staring back, while the other guys slap Jonny on the back. They’re saying encouraging stuff, nice stuff, “Missed you out there,” “Sorry you couldn’t be with us,” and Sharpy’s asking if he’s sure he didn’t get any smaller, which should be a sure way to get Jonny to go off at him, but Jonny just keeps looking at Patrick.

He comes closer, propelled through the crowd by the back slaps and grabby hands, and then he’s right in front of Patrick. He stops for a second and then throws his arms around him.

Patrick jumps a little in surprise. He and Jonny are—well, they definitely do hug; they’re hockey players, and hockey players are handsy, and the two of them spend more time together than most. But they don’t usually hug like this, Jonny throwing his arms around Patrick and clinging on like he’ll never let go.

“You were so good,” Jonny says, voice muffled by Patrick’s shoulder, and—Jonny tells Patrick that all the time, and maybe it shouldn’t mean as much coming from a thirteen-year-old, but it’s just so blatantly honest that Patrick feels warm all over.

“Better with you,” he says, and Jonny pulls back and smiles, a quick flash of a thing.

The team is obviously going out after a win like that. Bicks is talking loudly about this bar that does half-priced shots on Wednesdays, and the guys are all signing on. “You in?” Bicks asks Patrick, while Patrick’s getting dressed after his shower.

Patrick shoots a glance at Jonny, who’s waiting on the bench. He’s looking away from the conversation, but it feels deliberate, like he doesn’t want Patrick to know he’s listening. “Nah, I’m good,” Patrick says. “Gonna make it an early night.”

“Your loss,” Bicks says, shrugging, and Patrick does feel like it’s a loss, a little bit—the energy in the room is awesome right now—but he can’t just drop Jonny off at home and go to a bar. That would be, like, the dick move to end all dick moves.

He looks back over to Jonny, who’s ducked his head, but his cheeks are pink. Patrick’s pretty sure it was the right choice.

Jonny seems to find his voice again on the ride back. Grownup Jonny isn’t usually talkative like this—well, sometimes he goes on and on, but usually it’s about boring stuff, like how Patrick isn’t living up to his potential because he doesn’t think processed grains are the devil or something. This Jonny is almost hyper, and he’s talking about how good Patrick was.

“It was just so awesome,” he says for maybe the millionth time, talking about Patrick’s shorthanded goal.

“I hate to break it to you,” Patrick says, “but we kind of are that awesome. Like, we’re better together, but still.”

There’s a little bit of silence from the other side of the car, and then Jonny says, “Are we really?”

Patrick glances over, quick. “I thought you said you remembered.”

“I do, it just—it doesn’t feel real, you know?” Jonny says. “Like maybe I’ll never get there.”

“You _are_ there,” Patrick says.

“Not right now, I’m not,” Jonny says quietly, and then he’s quiet for the rest of the car ride home, not even saying anything when Patrick tries to get him to talk about the game again.

Fuck. Patrick wasn’t this moody as a teenager, was he?

It’s better when they’re back at the condo, because then at least there’s stuff to do, like changing the sheets in the guest room, and Patrick has to eat something and chug some Gatorade and respond to a bunch of people’s texts about his goals. “Oh, let me get you your toothbrush,” he says to Jonny when they’re setting him up in the guest room, and Jonny stares at the toothbrush for like a whole minute before he takes it out of Patrick’s hand.

“I…right,” he says, like he’s forgotten that they decided years ago that it would make more sense for them to keep toothbrushes at each other’s places.

“G’night, weirdo,” Patrick says, cuffing Jonny on the shoulder as he heads for the door.

“M’not weird,” Jonny mumbles, and Patrick rolls his eyes.

“You just lost ten years of age, I think that’s pretty weird,” he says, and grins at the look Jonny gives him. He heads to bed with the happy thought that maybe it’ll all be normal in the morning.

***

It’s not normal in the morning.

Patrick wakes up when his alarm screeches at him, which is a horrible sound, and then he stumbles out of bed and tries to remember what’s happening today. Skate? Yeah, skate at ten, plenty of time for breakfast and—

He opens his bedroom door, and there’s Jonny on the other side, standing there and staring up at him and thirteen years old.

“Holy fuck,” Patrick says, flinching backwards a little.

Guilt crosses Jonny’s face. “Sorry,” he says. “I just, um.” He shrugs. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

He is, in fact, in one of Patrick’s old t-shirts and the sweats from yesterday. “Oh, right,” Patrick says. “I guess we’d better go to the store.”

He pulls off his own t-shirt to change and only realizes he’s stripping in front of Jonny when he turns and sees Jonny still at the door, red-faced and eyes averted.

Patrick looks down. He’s still wearing boxers, and nothing’s, like, hanging out or anything. Anyway, Jonny at thirteen was practically living and breathing hockey—he must be used to worse than this in locker rooms. Hell, based on Jonny’s own attitude towards clothing, Patrick’s practically formally dressed.

He opens his mouth to say something about it, but Jonny jerks away from the door. “I’m just gonna—coffee,” he says, and Patrick stares after him for a minute before he shrugs and finishes getting dressed.

He finds Jonny in the kitchen a few minutes later, making a face at the cup of coffee. “What, is my Starbucks not up to your standards?” Patrick asks.

Jonny sticks his tongue out at the mug. “It tastes weird.” He slams the cup down on the counter. “This body fucking sucks.”

“Oh my God,” Patrick says, gleeful comprehension dawning. “Do you not like coffee yet? Is that it?”

Jonny’s glower is answer enough. He crosses his arms over his chest. Patrick has never been so happy in his life.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” he says, swiping the cup before Jonny can do anything else to it, like kick it across the room. “Kids love clothes shopping, right?”

Jonny looks even more horrified by this than by the coffee.

“Maybe if you’re good, we’ll get you an action figure,” Patrick says, and Jonny stomps out of the room.

***

Patrick only sneaks one action figure into the cart when they’re at Target. Jonny finds it at the checkout and throws it at Patrick’s head, and Patrick has to smile really big at the cashier and slip her a twenty to keep her from calling security.

“You,” he says to Jonny as they go to the car, “are a terror.”

“Takes one to know one,” Jonny mumbles. Then, a few minutes later, “Wait, where are we going?”

“Um, home,” Patrick says. Obviously. “To drop you off. Why?”

“Oh,” Jonny says, and then he’s quiet for half a block or so. “I just thought…”

“Yeah?” Patrick says when nothing more seems to be forthcoming.

“Nothing,” Jonny says in a really small voice.

“Really? Nothing?” Patrick says.

“It’s just…” Jonny trails off, and Patrick waits it out. “I really wanted to go to skate.”

“Oh. Huh.” Patrick drums his hands on the wheel. “Well, yeah, why not?”

“Yeah?” Jonny says quickly. “You think so?”

“Sure,” Patrick says. “We should see what Stan has to say anyway.”

***

What Stan has to say isn’t much. “Still working on it,” he says, and then to Jonny, “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says sullenly, in a way that communicates the exact opposite.

“I was thinking maybe we should call your parents,” Stan says, and Jonny jerks.

“What? Why?” he demands.

“I just figured you might want them around,” Stan says. “Can’t be easy being a kid without them.”

“I’m used to it,” Jonny says quickly. “I mean, I used to play away from home all the time, and—I want to stay here.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that you leave,” Stan says. “But sure, if you want. We don’t have to do anything.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, relaxing a little. “That’s what I want.”

“Are you sure?” Patrick asks a minute later, when they’re out in the hall. “You could just call them and talk, or—”

“I’m sure,” Jonny says.

Patrick slants him a skeptical glance, and that’s when he notices the bag slung over Jonny’s shoulder. “Um, what are you carrying?”

“Skating stuff,” Jonny says.

Skating—“Jonny.” Patrick stops walking. “You know you can’t skate with us, right?”

The look Jonny turns on him is angry and stubborn at the same time: eyes flashing, jaw set. Patrick knows that face, and it never leads to anything good.

“Oh, fuck me to hell and back,” Patrick mutters. “Jonny, you’re—”

“I can skate,” Jonny says. “I’m good, remember?”

“Yeah, for a thirteen-year-old,” Patrick says. “There’s a reason they don’t let thirteen-year-olds play in the NHL.”

“So put me in a no-contact jersey,” Jonny says.

“We don’t even have skates that fit you,” Patrick says. “Or, like, pads. You can’t—”

“The equipment guys will have something,” Jonny says. “My feet aren’t that small. And most of the pads are adjustable. It’ll be good enough for practice.”

He’s obviously thought this through. Patrick feels…weirdly pressured. Like, if this were grownup Jonny, he’d be giving in right now, and it should be easier to stand up to Jonny when he’s a kid, but…well, Jonny’s always been Jonny, he guesses.

Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be his call. “Fine. We can ask Q.”

***

“Absolutely not,” Q says, and Jonny’s chin juts out farther.

“But—”

“I’m not putting a kid out there when I’m trying to run a practice,” Q says.

Jonny’s silent for a moment. Then, “Fine,” he says, and runs out of the locker room.

“Jesus, who twisted his panties?” Sharpy asks Patrick as Patrick sags onto a bench.

“He wants to skate,” Patrick says.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sharpy says. “He’d be flattened.”

Patrick shrugs. “It’s Jonny.”

Sharpy snorts. “Yeah, fair point. So are you going after him?”

Patrick hadn’t thought about it. Maybe he should, but…no, he learned in their rookie year not to mess with Jonny when he’s in this mood. “Nah. Let him cool off.”

After practice, though, Jonny still isn’t anywhere around, and Patrick changes and showers and waits around for a couple of minutes and then goes to look for him.

He’s not in the trainers’ offices or the fitness rooms or lobby. “Fucking teenage hormones,” Patrick mutters to himself as he pokes into all the random offices that line the hallways.

He finally finds him in a corner of an equipment room, where there’s a pile of random free weights. Jonny’s sitting on a pile of mats with his foot on a hundred-pound barbell.

“I used to be able to lift one of these,” Jonny says when Patrick comes in.

“Yeah, you probably still can,” Patrick says. “You know, when you turn back.”

Jonny looks at the floor. “I skate every day. Practice or games or—I’m on a bunch of teams. You can’t just skip days. Not if you want to be in the NHL.”

“You’re already in the NHL,” Patrick says, and something flashes over Jonny’s face.

“I know that,” Jonny says. He slides his hands under his thighs and hunches his shoulders. He looks so tiny, sitting there: narrow shoulders, skinny ribs. Patrick kind of wants to wrap his arms around him but is afraid he’d break.

He goes over and sits down next to him instead. Jonny doesn’t look at him, but he doesn’t move away when Patrick bumps their shoulders together, either. “Hey,” Patrick says. “You want to go home and eat lunch and play video games and forget about everything else for a while?”

Jonny lets out a gusty sigh. “Yeah, okay.”

***

Jonny seems to be in a better mood when they’re back at Patrick’s, at least if his judgy look at Patrick’s takeout menus is any indication. “You shouldn’t be eating Chinese food,” he says, arms crossed, and the frown on his thirteen-year-old eyebrows is maybe the most adorable thing Patrick’s ever seen.

“You can make that call when you’re the one with a credit card,” Patrick says.

The frown lines etch deeper. “I have a credit card.”

“One you can use without someone asking if it’s your dad’s?” Patrick asks with a smirk.

Jonny rolls his eyes. “They wouldn’t ask if I did it over the—hey, stop it!” he says, reaching for the phone, but Patrick’s already talking the Chinese takeout people.

“Yeah, do you have a kids’ menu?” he asks, and grins when Jonny flips him off with both hands and storms out.

He does eat the Chinese food, though—a surprising amount; Patrick forgot how much teenage boys can pack it away—and he cheers up when they start playing NHL 11.

“Fuck, I thought you’d be worse at this,” Patrick says when Jonny beats him for the third time in a row.

“Thirteen-year-old hands,” Jonny says smugly, waggling his fingers at Patrick and then getting them back on the controller fast enough to get a goal past Patrick’s defense.

“Fucker!” Patrick shouts, and Jonny cackles.

They play for maybe three hours, until Patrick’s eyes start feeling glazed. “Okay, I need to not stare at the screen for a while,” he says.

“Old man,” Jonny says, digging his toes into Patrick’s thigh and leaning back with a gloating grin. Patrick sticks his tongue out at him, but he’s smiling, and for a moment it feels almost—

Normal. It feels almost normal.

The thought hits Patrick with such a gut-punch of loss that the smile drops off his face. It’s the dumbest thing in the world: Jonny isn’t lost, he’s right here, and he’s probably going to change back really soon. But Patrick still has a hard time controlling his face.

“What is it?” Jonny asks, the smile sliding off his face, too.

“Oh. Nothing,” Patrick says. “Sorry, I just—I think I’m going to take a nap, okay?”

“Okay,” Jonny says. He still sounds uncertain, and Patrick knows he should say something to reassure him, but—he can’t right now. He leaves the room instead.


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick falls asleep thinking that he really needs this to be over soon. Not just for Jonny—though obviously Jonny hates this a lot, and the team needs him back—but because Patrick’s starting to feel off-balance in a way he can’t quite identify. He’s not sure what’s causing it, but he’s pretty sure having Jonny back to normal would fix it.

He wakes up from his nap and comes out to find Jonny wearing a truly hideous and enormous Hawaiian shirt from the back of the guest room closet.

Jonny’s looking at himself the guest room mirror, making a face, and there’s a pile of other random clothing on the bed, so, like, obviously he’s not wearing it in any real way, but Patrick cracks up anyway. “Oh my God,” he says weakly, doubled over with laughter. “Oh my God, you have found your look.”

Jonny whirls around. “What? No. Shut up,” he says, and starts tearing at the shirt to get it off himself.

“Don’t even bother, man,” Patrick manages to say. Like, seriously, he thinks his abs are in danger of rupturing from laughing this hard. “I’ve already seen it. No going back.”

Jonny stops struggling with the shirt and crosses his arms across his chest. It makes him look even funnier, his skinny arms against the shirt that’s like four sizes too big for him.

“Okay,” Patrick says, gasping and trying to calm down. “No offense or anything, but what the fuck are you doing?”

Jonny glowers at the pile of clothing on the bed. “Nothing.” He kicks the trailing end of the bedspread a little. “It’s just really boring here, okay?”

“Lies,” Patrick says immediately. “You’re basking in the glory of my presence.”

Jonny doesn’t look very bask-y. He’s glaring at the floor now, arms still crossed over his chest. The tips of his ears are pink. “Whatever,” he says. “Can we do something fun now, at least?”

“You mean, like trying on this?” Patrick asks innocently, picking up a fake grass skirt that Jess left here four years ago, which is currently lying across his pillow.

“Fucker—no!” Jonny says as Patrick tosses it to him. He peels the skirt off his face and starts fighting his way out of the Hawaiian shirt again.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Patrick says, throwing a pillow at Jonny so he has to catch it and stop taking off the shirt. “I told you we’d found your look, remember?”

Jonny looks at him warily, pillow in his hands, pineapples on his chest and arms. “I mean,” Patrick says, smirking, “it really brings out your eyes, you know?”

Jonny flushes a dull red, all over his face and neck. “Fuck you, you’re the one who owns it.”

“I’m not the one who put it on because he was _bored,_ ” Patrick says.

“I’m not gonna…” Jonny drops the pillow and undoes a button, then pauses, uncertainly. “I’m not gonna keep wearing it.”

“Fine,” Patrick says with an exaggerated sigh, “be boring about it,” and he leaves the room while Jonny scowls down at the buttons.

Jonny comes into the kitchen a few minutes later, wearing a normal black t-shirt, while Patrick’s messing around on his iPad. “What are you doing?” Jonny asks.

“Finding something fun for us to do,” Patrick says, and Jonny’s face lights up. “I don’t know, though, do you think it’ll be authentic enough?” he asks innocently, turning the iPad so that Jonny can see the Google page for the Tiki Terrace in Des Plaines.

Jonny’s face is about as awesomely horrified as Patrick could have hoped for. Patrick bites down on his laughter. And then, instead of the furious glare and completely inadequate comeback he should be getting, he sees Jonny’s eyes fill with tears.

“Fuck you to hell,” Jonny hisses, and he turns on his heel and stomps out of the room.

Patrick blinks. Then he looks down at the iPad in his hand to make sure it’s not showing, he doesn’t know, an insult to Jonny’s mother or something—but no, it’s just the Tiki Terrace. Nothing that should have made Jonny go postal like that.

Okay, so Patrick guesses it was a little mean. But, like, about a quarter as mean as the things he and Jonny usually say to each other before lunchtime.

Those were definitely tears, though. Patrick’s not making up the tears.

He picks at a spot of dried food on his kitchen island, chewing on his lip, and then heads towards the bedrooms.

The door to the guest room is shut. Patrick knocks on it lightly. “Can I come in?” he asks.

There’s a long pause from within. Then, “Whatever.”

Jonny’s sitting on the bottom edge of the bed with his back mostly to the door, his hands clenched on his knees. All the clothes have been shoved off onto the floor. He doesn’t look up when Patrick opens the door.

Patrick goes over and sits down, a careful foot away from Jonny. “Um,” Patrick says, and he’s trying for serious, but it comes out sounding kind of like he’s joking. “What?”

Jonny angles his face a little bit away so that Patrick can’t quite see his eyes. He can see the blotchiness of his cheeks, though, and it’s obvious what he’s been doing. “What, were you not trying to be mean?” Jonny asks.

His voice sounds kind of rough, and it makes Patrick’s stomach do awful things. “Um,” he says, and this time it doesn’t come out like a joke. “Well, I mean, not more than usual. You do stuff to me like that all the time, dude,” he says, trying to veer towards something lighter.

“It’s not like—I don’t think that—I get that it’s dumb,” Jonny says, and his voice breaks on the end of it. “I get that—” He scrubs at his eyes. “It’s just like normal. I _get_ that.”

Patrick watches him warily. “But…”

“But I can’t— _win,_ okay?” Jonny looks at him, eyes red and desperate. “You’re all—” He waves his hand at Patrick, like that means something. “And I’m just—and I can’t—”

There are tears filling his eyes again, and he clenches them angrily. “Hey,” Patrick says, alarmed. “Hey, no, um, that totally makes sense.” It makes a little sense, anyway. He puts a hand on Jonny’s shoulder, and Jonny tenses for a second and then relaxes, like, two hairs. “I guess I wasn’t—you know, I was just trying to be normal. But, um, yeah. I guess I wasn’t thinking. I’m really sorry,” he says honestly.

Jonny sags a little into his touch. He angles his head forward, tilted toward the hand Patrick has on his shoulder, and—Patrick still isn’t sure Jonny isn’t going to punch him for this, but he can’t _not_ do something when Jonny has tears trickling down his cheeks, so he scoots closer and puts his arm around Jonny’s back.

Jonny melts into the touch immediately. He presses his face into Patrick shoulder and gets a fist in his shirt and holds on tight, breath heaving out of him. Patrick runs his hand up and down Jonny’s spine.

It’s okay. Patrick didn’t break things. He was dumb and he messed up but now Jonny’s crying on his shoulder, and maybe he shouldn’t be relieved about that, but he is.

It’s kind of nice. Sitting this close to Jonny and—for once—not feeling like it should be more than it is.

“Hey,” he says a little while later when Jonny’s breath has evened out and he’s just clinging, muscles gone lax. “Did you want to do something actually fun? See a movie, maybe?”

Jonny perks up a little, lifting his head. “Yeah,” he says, quiet, hopeful.

***

They end up going to see _Moneyball._ It’s pretty good—not about the best sport, obviously, but sports movies are always great, and this one is about stats, which makes it even better. Patrick wants to get popcorn, but Jonny gives him a judgy look, and Patrick rolls his eyes and moves away from concessions. By the time he’s absorbed in the movie he doesn’t even remember that he wanted it anymore.

“I’m just saying, that’s not all there is,” Jonny says when they’re walking out of the theater. “Like, maybe the stats thing would work—”

“It did work. It’s based on a true story,” Patrick says.

Jonny rolls his eyes. “Okay, but based on isn’t, like, exactly true.”

“Admit it, stats are god,” Patrick says smugly.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just—”

“You totally are saying I’m wrong.”

“No,” Jonny says exaggeratedly, like he’s explaining something to a slightly slow child, “I’m just saying they’re not absolutely a hundred percent of everything. Like, there’s other stuff that matters. Like—like sportsmanship, and drive, but also—the team, how it works together. Like, maybe two people’s stats are great, but you don’t know how well they’ll actually play together until you see them, right? There’s other stuff that’s not in the stats.”

Patrick opens his mouth to argue that stats can still capture shit like that, but then he remembers Jonny’s face a few hours ago, Jonny gesturing at Patrick and saying that he can’t win when he’s like this. He jostles Jonny’s shoulder instead. “So you’re saying there are things other than stats that make the Hawks great?”

“Well—” Jonny looks vaguely embarrassed, which equates to him looking constipated. “Yeah. I guess.”

“Awwww,” Patrick says, grinning. “You loooooove us.”

Jonny’s ears are red again. “So do you.”

“Well, yeah.” Patrick feels the smile tug wider at the corners of his mouth. “We’re pretty great.”

Jonny looks at him, almost like he’s surprised. After a moment he drops his eyes and sticks his hands in his pockets, and Patrick throws an arm around his shoulders and they walk out of the theater.

***

They have a game the next night, so it’s just a quick skate in the morning. Jonny watches this time like a mature thirteen-year-old person, sitting on the bench with his arms crossed sullenly. When they’re done, Patrick skates up to him, stopping with a spray of ice. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Watching,” Jonny says. “Obviously.”

“Yeah, but where are your skates?”

Jonny screws up his face at him. “I’m not allowed to practice right now. Remember?”

“So you’re saying I booked the next hour of ice time for nothing?” Patrick says, and Jonny’s face goes practically incandescent.

The equipment guys did find a pair of skates for him, it turns out—old, but good enough, and Jonny looks half excited and half petrified as he gears up, like someone’s going to take this away from him. “Are you gonna—” he says to Patrick, “I mean, I know you have to rest, because of the game, but if you wanted to—”

Sharpy sticks his head in the locker room door. “Hey, kid, are you coming out here or not? We’re getting bored.”

Jonny’s smile is so ridiculous that Patrick doesn’t even bother containing his own.

Like a third of the guys are still on the ice: Sharpy and Duncs and Seabs and Shawzy and Bollig and Leddy, skating around in lazy circles. “There’s the man,” Seabs says when Jonny comes out.

They don’t do anything too crazy—Jonny’s only thirteen, after all, and everyone else has a game tonight. But they run a couple of drills and do some no-contact scrimmaging.

Jonny really is good. Not as good as twenty-three-year-old Jonny, of course—not as fast, not as much of a reach, a little clumsier. But it’s already there, the thing Patrick sees in Jonny every day. The shine of greatness.

“Aw, fuck you!” Sharpy says when Jonny gets the puck into the goal he was “guarding.” Jonny laughs, high and bright and gleeful, and skates away.

“Thank you,” he says as they head to the car after, all quiet and intense. “Like, really. Thank you,” he adds, and Patrick kind of wants to hug him.

“Um, obviously,” he says instead, and chucks Jonny on the shoulder.

It’s a game day, so Patrick heats up one of the pasta dishes his food service left in the fridge, and they sit on the couch and eat and watch Penguins tape. Jonny’s still all quiet and happy, like maybe skating was some kind of spell to erase teen angst, and after the food is gone, he starts listing against Patrick’s shoulder until finally he’s sound asleep.

What Patrick should do is shake him and send him off to the guest room so they can both have their naps. But it’s not quite time for his nap yet, and Jonny’s so deeply under. He’s sacked out like Patrick’s shoulder is the most comfortable pillow ever, breath whiffling in and out, and there’s a game on the TV, and it’s just…peaceful. Patrick tips his head against Jonny’s and keeps watching the tape.

He sits like that until he feels his own eyelids start to close, and he shakes himself and shifts his shoulder to do the same to Jonny. “Hey. Time to get up.”

“Wuh?” Jonny sounds adorably sleep-muzzled, and he clings to Patrick for a minute before he lifts his head slowly and blinks his eyes like he’s been drugged. “Time ’sit?”

“Time for naps, come on,” Patrick says.

Jonny scrunches his nose. “But the couch is comfy,” he says.

“Oh yeah, is it?” Patrick asks, sneaking a hand down to get at the spot where he knows Jonny’s ticklish. Sure enough, Jonny shrieks and pulls away. Patrick chases a little, getting his fingers into his side again. “Is it comfy now?”

“Stop!” Jonny says, giggling, still sleep-soft and sounding more childlike than Patrick’s heard him so far. Then he twists against Patrick and Patrick feels something against his leg that isn’t childlike at all.

Jonny freezes instantly. Then he jerks away, face dropping and legs pulling up to his chest.

Patrick shifts awkwardly. It’s not like this doesn’t happen to guys all the time. Usually his policy is to pretend it’s not happening. But Jonny is hunched in on himself, tension in every line of his body, and it doesn’t seem like this is going to pass without comment. “Hey,” Patrick says. “It’s not a big deal.”

It really isn’t—or it shouldn’t be, but Jonny’s face gets more set. “Or course it isn’t to you,” he says, with a surprising amount of vitriol.

“Whoa,” Patrick says, raising his hands. “It’s not a big deal to anyone, dude. I was thirteen once, too.”

“I know.” Jonny looks to the side, away. “I remember.”

Patrick frowns at him. Maybe twenty-three-year-old Jonny doesn’t get random boners in public very much, but thirteen-year-old Jonny sure as fuck should be used to it. “So…there’s no reason to freak out about it?”

Jonny snaps his head around to glare at him. “That’s really fucking easy for you to say.” And he gets up and storms out of the living room.

Patrick is left staring at an empty doorway. “Oh, good,” he says. “This again.”

At least Patrick hasn’t actually done anything wrong this time. He figures he can take a nap, wait for Jonny to come down from his embarrassment, let them both forget it ever happened. Which is a great plan, except that when he gets up from his nap, Jonny won’t come out of the guest room.

“Uh,” Patrick says after Jonny shouts at him to go away. “No?”

There’s no response from inside. Patrick tries the knob, and it’s locked.

“What the fuck,” he mutters. And then, out loud: “Seriously, you know that it’s time for the game, right?”

“You can go without me,” Jonny says.

Technically, Patrick could go without him, but he’s pretty sure it’s a bad idea to leave an upset thirteen-year-old locked in his room alone for upwards of five hours. “Come on,” he says, in a tone that is only like halfway a whine. “Dude, just open the door. We have to leave.”

“No!” Jonny shouts.

Ugh. This calls for drastic measures.

Sharpy picks up on the second ring. “Okay, Abby just told me she needs me to pick up crystallized ginger before I go to the game, and I’m not even sure what that is, so this better be important.”

“Jonny won’t come out of his room,” Patrick says.

“And you want me to…tunnel in there?”

“I can’t figure out what’s wrong,” Patrick says. “He’s been in there for hours.”

Sharpy sighs. “All right, fine, I can talk and drive at the same time. What happened?”

“Nothing, really,” Patrick says. “We were watching tape earlier and he fell asleep and woke up with a boner and freaked out about it.”

“And you were a dick about it?” Sharpy says. “Pun totally intended, by the way.”

“No, and no,” Patrick says. He walks to the windows and back toward the kitchen. “I just told him it wasn’t a big deal, and he, like, flipped out.”

Sharpy huffs. “Ah, to be thirteen again. Man, did that age suck.”

“Yeah, but not all of us locked ourselves in our rooms for dumb reasons when we were supposed to be going to a hockey game.”

“Give the kid a break,” Sharpy says. “Didn’t you ever have a crush?”

“Yeah, but I—wait, what?” Patrick says. “Jonny doesn’t have a crush.”

There’s a short pause. “Um, are we talking about different Jonnys? Because the one I’m talking about spent the last two days with hearts practically falling out of his eyes every time he looked at you.”

Patrick laughs. “That’s ridiculous. Jonny is straight.”

“Oh, Peeks.” Sharpy laughs. “Oh, Peeks, Peeks, Peeks.”

Patrick blinks. His world is getting a little fuzzy around the edges. “Hold on. What are you even talking about right now?”

“I’m talking about Jonny,” Sharpy says. “And the torch he’s been carrying for you so obviously that it’s only now occurring to me that you were too stupid to pick up on it.”

Patrick sits down hard. Fortunately, there’s a couch behind him. “Jonny has a crush?”

“I so do not have time for this,” Sharpy grumbles. “Which one is more likely to have this ginger crap, Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s?”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Patrick says. “Jonny dates women.”

“Yeah, and sometimes he does it to make his stupidly oblivious teammate jealous. Or, wait, did you miss that?” Sharpy asks in an exaggerated voice.

“You’re making this up,” Patrick says.

“As if a pregnant wife wasn’t enough,” Sharpy says. “Okay, Peekaboo, it’s been a pleasure, but I have nausea to allay, and you have a tiny thirteen-year-old with a desperate and debilitating crush sitting in your guest room. Ciao!”

“No, but—” Patrick says, but Sharpy’s already hung up. Patrick stares at the phone blankly.

Jonny has—a crush. A crush. Jonny’s been looking at Patrick and thinking—

Patrick should probably not be breathing this quickly.

He gets up and wanders into the kitchen. He gets himself a glass of water and drinks it, staring at nothing.

Jonny’s always dated women. Always. There was Caitlin last year, and Emma for like a whole year before that—Patrick remembers vividly how Jonny would always put his arm around her and hold her close at team events, the way they would smile at each other, like they were sharing some private secret. You don’t fake that kind of thing. And just last month, that leggy brunette in the bar: Patrick remembers the way they made out, how Jonny closed his eyes and kissed her like he was starving. He remembers because he was watching, because he can never help watching when it comes to Jonny, and—

And he would have noticed if Jonny was ever watching him back. He would have noticed.

Patrick stops in front of the guest room door and pauses with his hand up to knock. He doesn’t know what his face is doing: he feels flushed, skin hot, and Jonny’s going to look at him and know something’s up.

He could just go to the game alone. Maybe he should. Then he wouldn’t have to think about—

Patrick closes his eyes and lets out a gust of air. He’s being stupid. This is _Sharpy._ This is the guy who spent twenty minutes last month trying to convince Patrick that one of the reporters desperately wanted him to rap for her. He’s just trying to mess with Patrick’s head. There’s nothing else going on here.

Except…except Jonny, locking himself in his room because he got a boner while he was wrestling with Patrick.

Fuck it, fuck it, Patrick’s just gonna go to the game alone.

He’s turning away from Jonny’s door when his phone buzzes. It’s Stan. “Kaner,” he says when Patrick answers. “You’d better get Jonny down here right now.”

***

The drive to the U.C. is awkward, but that’s nothing compared to walking into Stan’s office to see Sidney Crosby standing there.

Patrick doesn’t know Crosby super well—he’s not the one who’s Mr. Team Canada, after all. He doesn’t have much for or against him, really. But it’s pretty fucking weird to see him standing in Stan’s office after Stan’s called them in for an emergency meeting.

“What the fuck?” Patrick asks as Jonny trails in after him. He sees Jonny startle and realizes, belatedly, that Jonny probably didn’t want any other hockey players to see him like this. He contemplates stepping in front of Jonny and blocking him from view, but it’s probably too late for that.

Sure enough, Crosby’s eyes go to Jonny right away, and it wouldn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. He doesn’t look surprised, though.

“Sid here had some information on Jonny’s condition,” Stan says.

“You _told—_ ” Patrick says, but Crosby cuts in.

“I heard,” he says. “I’ve known some other guys who’ve had this happen.”

“Other guys,” Jonny says. He’s drifted closer, and his voice is so full of hope it’s almost painful. “You?”

Crosby shakes his head. “Guys I’ve known. I can’t tell you a lot. But it’s definitely not just you.”

“Okay,” Patrick says slowly. “So, like, why?”

Crosby hesitates. “It’s…complicated,” he says. “Sometimes it seems like there’s a reason, sometimes not so much. Though there might have been things they didn’t want to tell me,” he adds.

Jonny’s face goes pink. He looks at the carpet, angling away from Patrick. Patrick shifts his weight uncomfortably.

“You said you had a way for him to turn back, though,” Stan prompts.

“Sort of,” Crosby says. “It’s not actually a thing he has to do. It should go away by itself on the new moon.”

“What, like werewolves?” Patrick asks.

Crosby gives him a dead-eyed stare. “That’s the full moon.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “So when is that?”

“Two days from now,” Crosby says, like that’s a normal thing to know and maybe Patrick’s an idiot for not knowing it. Which is total bullshit, but that doesn’t matter right now because—

“Two days?” Jonny repeats. His little thirteen-year-old face is full of so much hope that it almost hurts to look at. “I’ll be back in two days?”

Crosby smiles at him—it does improve his face a little. “That’s right.”

Jonny’s face spreads into this ridiculous smile. It’s awesome to see, even if it’s directed at Crosby—not that Patrick cares. Jonny can smile at whoever he wants. “Thank you,” Jonny says to Crosby.

“Any time, Toews.” Crosby punches him lightly in the arm as he walks out. “I’ll just have to settle for beating you next time we’re in town,” he says from the doorway.

“Yeah, right,” Jonny says, pivoting to watch him go. Patrick still doesn’t care, exactly, but then Jonny keeps turning until he’s facing Patrick again, huge smile still on his face, and he throws his arms around Patrick and holds on tight.

Patrick bites down on his grin and hugs him back. This is just—this is because Jonny’s happy, because they’re friends. Not because of anything Sharpy said. It’s normal.

Jonny’s so small like this: back and shoulders thin under Patrick’s hands. Stan’s smirking at them a little, and Patrick gives him a thumbs up. They’re gonna be okay.


	3. Chapter 3

The Hawks beat the Pens in overtime—take that, Crosby—and Jonny’s practically giddy in the locker room after. “I’ll be back for the game against the Oilers,” he says when Patrick’s done with press.

Patrick snorts. “It’s the Oilers,” he says. “Couldn’t you come back for a game where we actually need you?”

“Shut up, I’m so ready to turn back.” Jonny makes a face. “I feel so…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. “Yeah?” Patrick says as he pulls off his pads.

Jonny just shrugs. “I’m so ready,” he says.

Patrick lets it go and heads into the showers, where Sharpy corners him before he can get under the spray. “So did you have to get the door off with a crowbar?”

“What have I told you about talking to me when I’m naked?” Patrick says.

“That I should be too distracted by the size of your endowment to form a sentence?” Sharpy pretends to think. “No, that couldn’t have been it…”

“Anyway, fucker, no, he came out on his own,” Patrick says. “And that was very funny, by the way.”

“What, my joke about your endowment?” Sharpy asks.

“The thing where you tried to get me to believe he had a crush,” Patrick says. “Hilarious.”

Sharpy’s eyebrows go up, and for a second he just stares. Finally he says, “Peeks. Were we not watching the same thirteen-year-old out there? Like, even just now. Tonight. You cannot be this dense.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to be a father?” Patrick says. “Because I’m not sure you know anything about—well, people, really.”

Sharpy just shakes his head, like Patrick failing to believe in his prank is the saddest thing in the world. “Just…keep an eye out. That’s all I’m saying.”

He smacks Patrick on the bare ass and ignores his squawk as he leaves the room.

***

Patrick doesn’t intend to keep an eye out. Listening to Sharpy’s pranks only ends up in tears (yours) and laughter (Sharpy’s—though to be fair, sometimes Sharpy cries, too. With laughter.) But it’s impossible not to think about it now.

Jonny seems normal on the way home. He’s happier than he has been—Patrick can thank Crosby for that, probably—but Patrick’s seen Jonny happy a lot, over the years. After games they’ve won, times when the team’s been clicking well. It’s a little more obvious on his thirteen-year-old face, but that’s about it. He doesn’t seem different when he looks at Patrick.

They hang out on the couch for a while, watching some stupid fishing show Jonny wants to see on Netflix—some things never change—and Jonny leans into Patrick’s side a little, but again, that’s just normal stuff. He’s not, like, trying to grope Patrick or anything. They’re just sitting close the way they usually do when they watch TV, because they’re athletes and they’re friends and there’s nothing weird about it.

Jonny yawns, jaw bumping against Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick stands up. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

Jonny seems kind of startled—probably because Patrick just stood up with no warning, like a weirdo. “Yeah, okay.”

He trails after Patrick toward Patrick’s room while they talk about what’s happening tomorrow. There’s a normal practice in the morning, but then Patrick has a meeting with some sponsors in the afternoon; he’s been trying to get out of that stuff while Jonny’s all tiny, but he couldn’t move this one. “It’s just a couple of hours,” he says, pulling off his shirt and grabbing the one he likes to sleep in. “I’ll be back by—”

He cuts off, because that’s when he turns around to find Jonny looking away, blushing furiously.

Patrick stares, frozen. The t-shirt dangles from his fingertips.

Jonny looks up, eventually—of course he does, because Patrick’s cut off in the middle of a sentence. He sees Patrick staring, and the flush spreads down from his face to his neck.

“Are you—” Patrick says. His mouth feels super dry. “Sharpy said—”

Jonny turns and glares at the doorframe, then scuffs it with his shoe a little. “It’s—no. Whatever.”

“You do,” Patrick says blankly. His brain seems to have stopped working. “I thought he was full of—but you do. Oh my God.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jonny says, voice rising.

Patrick sits down on the bed, hard. “You have a—”

“I’m going to bed,” Jonny says, loud enough to drown out what Patrick’s saying, and stomps off down the hall.

Patrick hears the guest room door slam. He just sits there, stomach churning, unable to think about anything.

***

Eventually he gets up and brushes his teeth. It would be better if he could do something more active: go for a run, lift a shit-ton of weights, play a period of hockey. Something to get his brain out of his body, because as it is he can’t escape the knowledge that’s creeping up on him.

It’s dumb. He shouldn’t be thinking like this, because it’s obviously just a thirteen-year-old thing—like, hero worship or whatever. Jonny doesn’t feel like this when he’s his normal self. Patrick can’t even let himself think about that, because if Jonny does, then it means Patrick has a chance at—

He squeezes his eyes shut and brushes harder. He doesn’t—he can’t let himself think about stuff like that. He just needs to go to bed and put it out of his mind.

***

Patrick has weird dreams all night. He doesn’t remember them, but they leave him gummy-eyed and off-balance in the morning. He hesitates for like five minutes before knocking on Jonny’s door.

“Hey, time for practice,” he calls, trying to sound normal and cheerful and mostly just sounding fake.

There’s silence from inside the room. Then, “Can you go without me? I think I’m going to skip it.”

Patrick’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. Like—okay, Jonny really doesn’t need to be there. But it’s _Jonny._ Two days ago he was fighting to go on the ice, and now—

It doesn’t matter; tomorrow all of this will be over. “Um, sure,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Jonny says, very finally.

The car feels weirdly empty on the way to practice. Three days isn’t very long to get used to something, but Patrick’s been used to driving with Jonny to practice for a long time before that. Not every day, but lately—well, yeah, actually, he can’t remember the last time one of them didn’t drive the other to practice. Not for a few weeks, anyway. He hadn’t quite realized it had gotten that regular.

“Where’s the kid?” Shawzy asks when Patrick comes into the locker room.

“You’re right here,” Sharpy calls over, and then, feigning confusion, “Oh, you mean the other kid?”

Patrick forces a grin while Shawzy tries to get Sharpy into a headlock. Good luck to him; Sharpy’s hard to pin down.

“No, but really,” Shawzy says a few minutes later, when he’s out of breath and Sharpy’s looking ruffled but smug. “No mini-Taze today?”

“Yeah, he didn’t come,” Patrick says. He’s trying to make it sound straightforward, like it’s not a thing, but he sees Sharpy’s head swivel over and winces. Damn that man’s nose for secrets.

“Trouble in teendom?” Sharpy asks in a low voice once Shawzy’s gone back to his stall.

“Nah, we’re good,” Patrick says, but he’s never been able to lie worth a damn, and Sharpy’s face lights up.

“Wait, was I right?” he asks. “Oh my God, I was, wasn’t I?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Patrick asks crankily. “You’re the one who said it was obvious.”

“Yeah, but it’s totally different to have it confirmed.” Sharpy puts his hands behind his head. “Admit it: I am a god.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Patrick says.

“I don’t think I’m the one you want to be fucking,” Sharpy says. He slaps Patrick on the back. “Just make sure to use protection. You don’t want to make him a teen mom.”

Patrick is too horrified by that to do more than sputter, and by the time he finds his voice Sharpy’s across the room and too far for Patrick to yell at him without the whole team overhearing. “Bastard,” Patrick calls instead, and Sharpy gives him a sunny grin.

***

Patrick doesn’t want to fuck Jonny. He wants—he wants things to be normal again. They had a good thing going, four-plus years of friendship, a thing where Patrick was good at not hoping for too much, and then Jonny had to go and turn thirteen and have feelings and now Patrick’s own feelings aren’t staying anywhere they’re supposed to.

He dawdles after practice, does his normal heavy-day workout and showers slowly afterward. He gets in the car and goes halfway home, then turns around and drives to that sushi plays he knows Jonny likes. They’ve eaten here a ton, and Patrick stands in the waiting area after he orders and looks across at the table they sat at last time they were there, just a couple of weeks ago. It was so normal: Jonny was mad about an article that had just come out about Patrick’s play—“You’re at a higher level than that by now! Don’t they see it?”—and Patrick rolled his eyes but kicked Jonny’s foot a little in gratitude, and then they put their heads together and figured out plays to use against the Flames.

Just one more day until Jonny’s back to normal.

The condo is quiet when he goes in, the guest room door closed. Patrick looks at it for a beat, stomach squirming, and then he knocks. “Jonny?”

There’s a long pause. “I’m fine,” Jonny says at last.

Patrick chews on his lip. “Okay, well, there’s sushi in the living room if you want it.”

He gets through almost a whole episode of _Mad Men_ and one of the styrofoam containers of sushi before Jonny comes in. “Hey,” Patrick says, eating his sushi and not looking directly at him.

Jonny hesitates by the edge of the couch for a minute. Then he grabs one of the styrofoam boxes and darts over to sit as far away from Patrick as possible, box closed on his lap.

Patrick—Patrick feels like he fell on the ice.

Everything starts arraying itself in his mind: Jonny’s been in his room all morning. Jonny didn’t want to come out and go with Patrick to anything. Jonny’s sitting as far away as possible; he’s not eating even though he’s got to be starving by now. Jonny’s afraid—

Oh fuck. Oh _fuck_ , Patrick’s messed this up, really really badly. He’s let Jonny think…

The sushi’s churning in his stomach now, and he has to stop eating, let his chopsticks fall into the container. He tries to pull his leg in closer to the arm of the couch so that he takes up as little space as possible. Maybe he could say—but would Jonny believe him? Maybe he could call someone over, instead, someone safe. Abby, or Seabs—Jonny’s always trusted Seabs—

“I’m sorry,” Jonny says, breaking the silence.

Patrick looks over in surprise. Jonny’s head is bent over his unopened box of sushi, fingers digging hard into the edges of the styrofoam.

Okay. So maybe Patrick read this wrong. “Um, what?” he says.

“For…you know.” Jonny sounds like he’s about to cry. “I wasn’t trying to, I just—I can’t help it, and—”

“Oh hey, no.” Patrick moves automatically, angling his body a little towards Jonny, and he freezes as soon as he realizes—but right away some of the tension runs out of Jonny’s body, the straight line of his back relaxing. “It’s not a—I mean, maybe it is a big deal,” he corrects himself. “But it’s okay. I’m not freaking out or anything.”

“Good.” Jonny’s hands are still clenched around the box of sushi. “I didn’t want to, like, fuck things up, or—I don’t want to leave.”

“What? No, of course you don’t have to leave.” God, Patrick’s just glad Jonny isn’t afraid of him. He’s not going to make him leave for anything.

“It’s just, normally I have it under control,” Jonny says, voice low. “But right now, like this, I can’t—”

“Whoa,” Patrick says. “Wait. You normally, like…you normally feel like this?”

Jonny looks at him for the first time, and it’s a glare. “No, I don’t normally feel like I’m thirteen.”

“But…me. You, like…” Patrick feels dizzy letting the words out there. “You normally feel this way about…me?”

Jonny looks away.

Holy fuck. All the gods in heaven. Patrick can’t—

“Even when you’re twenty-three,” Patrick says. His voice sounds raw in his ears. “You feel like this all the time.”

Jonny’s still looking away, towards the windows. “Can we not talk about this?”

Patrick’s not sure he _can_ talk right now, actually. He feels like he has nothing to hold onto—like he’s on the deck of a tilting ship, and there’s nothing to catch him. Not even Jonny’s words—Jonny’s thirteen right now; he clearly doesn’t remember being twenty-three all that well. If Patrick lets himself start to—

“It’s not the same, though, right?” Patrick says. “When you’re older. It’s just—I mean, we’re friends, and…” He trails off.

There’s a short silence. “I’ve felt like this since I was actually thirteen,” Jonny says in a low voice.

It’s like a punch in the gut. “Ten years?” Patrick croaks. “You’ve liked me for…”

Jonny looks up at him, and the anguish in his eyes is obvious. Patrick can’t look away.

He remembers being twelve and watching Jonny fly across the rink. Looking at his face, all earnest as he talked to the other kids about how they could be better. The way everyone looked up to him. He remembers lying in bed at night and trying to keep his thoughts from straying in that direction. Reciting Stanley Cup winners to distract himself, because he knew it wasn’t okay. Remembers sitting in the locker room that summer and thinking _Ottawa Senators New York Rangers Boston Bruins_ because Jonny was across the locker room looking—

Jonny still looks like that now. He’s _thirteen._

Patrick gets off the couch. “I have to go,” he says. “The sponsor meeting. I have to go.”

Jonny looks at him, stricken. His tiny face, the one Patrick used to look at in the team roster he saved from that summer and only pulled out when he couldn’t help it.

“It’s not—I just really have to go,” Patrick says, and gets out of there.

***

He’s shaky during the sponsor meeting. He doesn’t think he says or does anything too dumb, but he spaces out a couple of times, and people have to repeat themselves. He just keeps thinking about Jonny’s face, when Patrick said ten years, and Jonny—

_Ottawa Senators New York Rangers Boston Bruins Montreal Canadiens Montreal Canadiens_

He gets back to the condo, and Jonny isn’t there.

He doesn’t realize it right away; the guest room door is open and the room empty, but Patrick figures he’s somewhere else in the condo. It’s not until he’s checked every room twice and called Jonny’s phone at least five times that he starts to panic.

He calls Sharpy. “I lost him,” he says right away.

“What?” Sharpy says. “Did you do something dumb?”

“No!” Patrick says, though maybe he did. “I just went to a meeting, and when I came back I couldn’t find him.”

“He didn’t tell you he was going anywhere?”

“No.”

“Did you call his phone?”

“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot.” It rang a bunch of times and then went to voicemail, like maybe Jonny had it on but wasn’t looking at it. Or couldn’t.

“Okay,” Sharpy says, sighing like Patrick’s being the unreasonable one here. “Well, he probably went out somewhere.”

“No fucking _duh,_ he went out somewhere!” Patrick walks the length of the hall, turns back. “We have to find him. He could be lost, or cold, or—or run over by a truck, or—”

“First of all, he’s thirteen, not three,” Sharpy says. “I think he knows how to walk down the street by himself.”

“People still get babysitters for thirteen-year-olds!” Patrick says.

“You didn’t,” Sharpy points out.

“Well, no, I…” Patrick didn’t think about it, actually. He could have brought Jonny over to Sharpy’s, or Seabs’. Should have, probably. But he wasn’t thinking—not about that, anyway.

“Chill,” Sharpy says. “Not actually blaming you. Actually, I had you pegged for a breakdown way sooner than this, with Jonny gone.”

“It’s been five minutes and I’m freaking out at you,” Patrick says.

“No, I mean since he turned thirteen,” Sharpy says. “I think I owe Seabs a beer.”

Patrick opens his mouth to object to that—Jonny isn’t _gone;_ he’s just—but there are more important things right now. “He was mad at me,” he says. “I said—well, it doesn’t matter. But that’s probably why he left. He might have—I don’t know, he was mad, he could have gotten on a bus somewhere or—”

“Or maybe he went back to his place,” Sharpy says.

Patrick stops pacing. “Oh.” Right. He kind of forgot Jonny had a place of his own. But yeah, him being thirteen didn’t affect his condo. “I guess, um. I guess you’re right.”

“Look. Just text him you’re sorry, and then go over and braid each other’s hair, and it’ll all be fine,” Sharpy says.

That’s probably what Patrick should do, after he hangs up—well, minus the hair-braiding part. But he can’t shake the niggling feeling that something could be really wrong: that Jonny is small and alone in the world and all sorts of terrible things might have happened to him. It was starting to rain when Patrick came in, so if Jonny’s out there, he’s probably getting wet, getting cold. Yeah, he could just be at his condo, and Patrick would be an idiot not to check there first, but if he’s not—

Patrick shoves his feet back in his shoes and puts his jacket on. He’s just about to open the door when it opens for him, and Jonny’s on the other side.

“Where the _fuck_ were you,” Patrick says and marches right up to him and pulls him into a hug.

Jonny clings back right away. Patrick kicks the door shut with his foot and then they’re inside, holding onto each other. Jonny’s jacket is wet—he did get caught in the rain—but Patrick doesn’t care. Jonny is _safe,_ and he’s here.

“Don’t fucking _do_ that to me,” Patrick mutters as Jonny buries his face in his shoulder.

Jonny mumbles something against his shirt that might be “Sorry.” Patrick will take it.

Patrick pulls back—far enough that he can put his hands on Jonny’s shoulders and look him in the face. Jonny looks okay: wet, cold maybe, but not hurt. “Where the fuck were you?” he says again, a question this time.

Jonny’s eyes drop to the floor. “I had to—go,” he says. “I couldn’t…”

Well, Patrick can’t very well blame him for that. “Oh. Yeah, okay,” he says.

Jonny sighs like he’s relieved. Patrick wants to hug him again, and that impulse makes him step back, turn away. “You should have left a freaking note, though,” he says. “Like, you could have been dead.”

“ _You_ left,” Jonny said.

It’s surprisingly sharp, and it makes Patrick look back at him. Jonny’s face has hardened: he’s glaring at Patrick, an edge of uncertainty in it, but his jaw is jutted out. The thing that gets Patrick is that it’s so familiar. Jonny’s face is younger than usual, its lines softer and babyish, but the look is the same one Patrick’s seen a million times.

Sharpy was wrong. Jonny isn’t gone at all.

There are so many things Patrick wants to say to him. But Jonny’s still thirteen, and Patrick can’t imagine saying any of those things without following them up with—

He shuts his eyes against that and turns away again. “We should talk about this tomorrow,” he says.

There’s a long silence. Then, “Okay,” Jonny says, voice tiny, and Patrick hears him moving away towards the guest room. A minute later, the door shuts.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Patrick mutters, and goes to curl up in a corner of the couch and stick his head into a pillow until he stops wanting to scream quite so much.

***

Jonny doesn’t come out for dinner. Patrick really hopes it’s because he got something to eat when he went out and not because he’s starving himself over Patrick’s utter failing to be a functional human being. But he comes out a little bit before Patrick plans to go to bed.

Patrick’s on the couch, reading email on his tablet, and he doesn’t hear Jonny come out until Jonny’s in his line of sight. Then he jumps like three feet.

“Jesus,” he says, pressing his hand and his tablet over his heart. “Warn a guy, would you?”

“Sorry,” Jonny says. He’s kind of hovering, hands at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I was wondering, um, if I could ask you a favor.”

“Yeah, ’course,” Patrick says. His heart rate is starting to come down after being startled.

Jonny looks at the other half of the couch, hesitates for a minute, then comes over. He climbs on cross-legged so that he’s facing Patrick, hands folded in his lap and eyes trained on them. “I was hoping—I wanted to ask, but, um, you can totally say no. I won’t be mad or anything.”

“Yeah?” Patrick says.

“I was wondering if, um.” He stops and sucks in an audible breath. “If maybe you would kiss me?”

There’s a long, long silence. Patrick stares at the top of Jonny’s head and watches his ears turn red.

“Um,” he says finally. “What?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” Jonny says. He’s gripping the edge of the couch cushion like he’s trying to keep himself from fleeing.

“No, I heard you, I just…” Patrick blinks at him, at the rigid lines of his arms. “You…want me to kiss you."

Jonny looks up at him, his gaze swift and piercing and vulnerable. Patrick feels it like a physical blow.

“You’re thirteen,” he says helplessly.

Jonny just keeps looking at him with those dark, dark eyes that keep Patrick from breathing. Has Jonny looked at him like this before? How has Patrick missed it?

“Tomorrow,” Patrick says desperately. “We can—tomorrow.”

Jonny looks away. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

Patrick’s heart stumbles over itself. “What? Of course you will,” he says.

“Not like this. Not—me, not really.” He pulls his knees up to his chest, hugs them. “I just want to know what it’s like,” he says to his knees.

Oh, break his heart. “You’ve been kissed,” Patrick says. “Lots of times.”

“Yeah, but those don’t feel like me, not really.” Jonny presses his mouth against his knees so that Patrick can just see the top of his cheeks, blazing red. “And—not by you.”

Patrick has no idea what to say to that.

“It’s okay if you don’t—” Jonny says. “I mean. I know you don’t want to, so—”

“No, Jesus, it’s not that I don’t want to,” Patrick says. “If you were a lot older, or if I were a lot—I mean, I wouldn’t even—I would definitely.” His stomach flips just saying it.

“People get kissed at thirteen,” Jonny says.

“Not by twenty-two-year-olds.”

“It’s you, though.” Jonny drops his knees and stares into his lap. “I know we’re not the same right now, and I know it’s—it’s weird. But I’m afraid—” He bites his lip, looks away. “I’m afraid I won’t want it this bad after I change,” he says quietly. “And I don’t want to disappear without knowing what it’s like.”

Fuck. A million times fuck. Patrick can’t believe this is happening. There’s a thirteen-year-old in front of him, and Patrick is seriously thinking about—

It’s Jonny, though. If there’s anyone Patrick can trust to be honest with him, it has to be him.

“One kiss,” he says, and Jonny’s head snaps up, face full of hope. His baby face, soft and rounded and young around the edges but still the face Patrick knows so well.

“Should I,” Jonny asks.

“No, stay there,” Patrick says. He scoots down the couch. It’s better if—he should probably be in control of this.

Jonny’s still sitting with his knees out, legs crossed. Patrick puts one knee up on the couch and sits sideways so that their legs are touching. Jonny’s sitting still, watching him with wide eyes. Patrick puts a hand up to cup his cheek. Jonny’s eyes flutter a little, like he can’t help it.

He’s trembling. Just faintly, but enough that Patrick can feel it. “Close your eyes,” Patrick says, and Jonny does, mouth falling open a little.

Patrick leans in slowly. He can feel Jonny’s breath against his mouth, coming fast, and then he’s brushing their lips together: soft, gentle, a lingering press. Their mouths are just the slightest bit open, making the kiss a little wet, a little warm. It feels—sweet. It feels like everything a first kiss should be.

Patrick lets it go on a few moments, and then he pulls back, a tiny strand of spit stretching between their lips.

Jonny’s eyes stay closed for a long moment. When they do open, it’s slow, like the lids are weighted down, and then he’s looking at Patrick with eyes that are hazy with want. “Oh,” he says, like he’s surprised.

Patrick lets his hand fall from Jonny’s cheek and leans back. He doesn’t trust himself not to—not to want to do more to put that look on Jonny’s face. “You should go to bed,” he says.

“Yeah,” Jonny says, but for a few moments he just sits there, looking at Patrick with that dazed realization in his eyes. Then he gets up and turns to go and walks into the couch, clips it with his thigh and stumbles around it on his way out of the room.

Patrick would laugh—would find it funny—except that in the grand scheme of things, he doesn’t think he’s any less lost himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick goes to bed pretty soon after that. There doesn’t seem to be any point in staying up.

Tomorrow. It’ll all be over tomorrow.

Patrick’s trying not to think too hard about what might happen tomorrow—trying not to think beyond what he _won’t_ have to worry about anymore. But as he lies in bed he lets his thoughts drift a little, and they go back to a few weeks ago, sitting in a bar and watching Jonny and that woman make out.

He must have been watching even more closely than he thought, because he can picture it perfectly. It was nothing like the kiss Patrick just shared with Jonny, where Jonny looked so awed at a simple brush of lips. This was Jonny really going for it: holding the woman’s head where he wanted it and kissing her deep. Patrick remembers the way Jonny’s eyes were closed, lashes dark against his skin, and he bets Jonny’s tongue was firmly inside her mouth, stroking against hers, commanding—

Patrick shifts on the bed. He’s getting hard inside his shorts. He never lets himself think about Jonny like this; has never jerked off to him in all the years they’ve known each other. It’s not because it’s dangerous, though that’s part of it. It’s more that it would never feel believable for long enough for him to get off. But today, Jonny sat in front of him and begged him for a kiss, and tomorrow…

Well. Patrick still doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow. But tonight, for the first time, he lets himself think about it. He imagines he’s in the place of the woman in the bar, and Jonny’s holding his head to kiss him, hands sunk deep into Patrick’s curls. Imagines Jonny kissing him hungrily, open-mouthed, his tongue sliding against Patrick’s. He would show Patrick where he wants him, and Patrick would go boneless in his arms. And then Jonny’s hand would slide down his chest, down to…

It gets kind of sweaty and hazy and breathless after that. It’s Jonny everywhere: Jonny pressing him down onto the bed, his body larger than Patrick’s again, arms and legs thick and shoulders broad and hands controlling. Jonny rubbing their cocks together and sending sparks all along Patrick’s skin. Jonny whispering things in Patrick’s ear, low and sweet and earnest, things that make Patrick gasp and arch and—

He spills into his own hand, hot under the covers, and collapses into thrumming exhaustion.

The things he had Jonny whisper in his ear at the end there. Those things feel like too much, now that the moment’s over—too much to hope that Jonny will say all that. But he does hope, anyway. Can’t help but hope.

No matter what, when he wakes up, it’ll be tomorrow.

***

As soon as Patrick opens his eyes the next morning, he thinks: _Jonny’s normal again._

It’s crazy, the way the thought sends a bolt right through his chest: Jonny’s been the right age for so many years, right there beside him for almost every day of it, and it’s never made Patrick grin as widely as he’s doing now.

 _Ten years_ , he remembers saying to Jonny, and Jonny not denying it. Jonny looking at him with hunger in his eyes. Patrick remembers the weight that settled over him when he saw that, the constraint and it’s gone now. Jonny’s not thirteen anymore. Patrick doesn’t need to hold back. Maybe, if Patrick isn’t making it all up, if he’s not delirious or deluded and it’s actually all true, maybe they’ll be able to—

First things first, though. Pants first.

Patrick gets up and pulls on the first pair of pants he sees. Then he realizes they’re the sweat pants he wore to work out in yesterday, and maybe that’s kind of gross, if he’s hoping to go out there and—but it’s Jonny, and they’ve seen each other in way worse. And does he really intend to be wearing pants for very long, anyway?

Christ. Patrick’s hands are shaking a little.

Probably he should make Jonny some coffee. He can’t imagine cooking actual food right now; his stomach is jumping all over the place. But Jonny always thinks better with coffee. Or does Patrick not want that? If Jonny has coffee, he might start overthinking things, and maybe it would be better if he’s still drowsy and sleep-warm and—

Okay, now Patrick’s the one overthinking things. He hasn’t even checked that Jonny’s changed back yet. He smoothes his shirt and goes down the hall to the guest room.

Which is empty.

Patrick pauses in the doorway for a moment. Somehow, he hadn’t anticipated this. The bed is made, all tidy, the way Jonny never does it except when he’s changed the sheets. He must have been up for a while, then.

Okay, Patrick can roll with this. He goes down the hall to the kitchen, except Jonny isn’t there, either. He isn’t in the living room, or the dining room, or the bathroom, or—Patrick does another round of the rooms, just to check, but by this point it’s pretty obvious.

The apartment is empty. Jonny’s not here.

Patrick pulls out his phone. There’s no text from Jonny, but there probably wouldn’t be, if he thought Patrick was asleep. He’s always paranoid that he’s going to text Patrick and wake him up. _You back to normal?_ he texts Jonny, and then stands there for a minute waiting for a reply before he admits to himself that that’s what he’s doing and goes to make himself eat some breakfast instead.

Jonny still hasn’t replied by the time Patrick leaves for skate. He’s trying not to let himself worry about it; Jonny probably had a lot to do, after turning back into an adult. Like laundry, and calling his mom. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with Patrick at all.

Unless…maybe something went wrong with the transformation. They only have Sidney Crosby’s word that Jonny’s going to turn back today, after all. What if he didn’t change back? Or what if something worse happened? Patrick would like to think Jonny wouldn’t have left if something were wrong, but he still finds himself hurrying on his way to the locker room.

Where he finds Jonny looking totally normal, strapping on his pads.

Patrick freezes at the sight. Jonny…Jonny’s so big. So adult. So…

“Hey, check out who’s back!” Shawzy says a second later, bounding into the locker room and skirting around Patrick. “Good to see you, man!”

“Oh hey, thanks,” Jonny says, turning to accept Shawzy’s fist bump. His eyes run across Patrick as he does, and they don’t even pause.

Patrick’s stomach tightens into a lump, small and heavy and cold.

He starts changing on autopilot. His eyes keep straying to Jonny, trying to catch his eye, but Jonny isn’t looking back.

He’s so _big._ Jonny’s never been the biggest guy in the room, not one of those hulking players who seem to take up two people’s worth of space. His height is normal; his size is pretty average, for a hockey player. But right now he seems almost exaggeratedly enormous. Patrick keeps being startled by how the length of his limbs, the sharper angles of his face.

The face that’s turned away from him, that’s set in hard, cold lines.

Patrick’s pretty out of it for all of practice. Q yells at him once for doing a drill wrong, and he tries to pay more attention after that, but it’s hard. He’s so conscious of Jonny, so conscious of how he’s turned away.

“Hey, everything okay?” Sharpy asks near the end of practice, when they’re on the bench.

Patrick nods, mouth pressed together tightly.

Sharpy jerks his head towards Jonny, at the other end of the bench. “Because it kind of seems like—”

“It’s fine, okay?” Patrick snaps.

Sharpy looks at him for a moment. “Okay,” he says at last. “But you’d better not let it fuck up the game.”

He has a point. They’re playing the Oilers tonight—not the toughest opponent, but Patrick doesn’t want to mess this one up. And he’s not sure how he’ll be able to play on a line with Jonny if Jonny won’t look at him.

Jonny’s slow getting changed after practice. Patrick slows down, too, trying to pace him, but Jonny just gets slower and slower, spending forever fiddling with his pads, and finally Patrick finishes up and goes outside the door to wait for him.

Jonny comes out suspiciously quickly after that. He pulls up short at the sight of Patrick.

“Hey, can we talk?” Patrick says.

Jonny presses his lips together. “I’d rather not,” he says, and Patrick’s stomach compresses further.

“It’s just—the game,” Patrick says. “It might be better if we—”

“I’ve told you what I want,” Jonny cuts in. His gaze is cold and distant, fixed just over Patrick’s shoulder. “Are you going to respect that, or not?”

Patrick can’t even speak for a moment. “Okay,” he says finally. “If that’s—”

“Thanks,” Jonny says, brusque. He brushes past Patrick and stalks out of sight.

Patrick’s head feels totally empty. This is—maybe he was hoping for too much, but this is—

He drives home in a daze. It’s kind of a wonder that he doesn’t hit anything, and he thinks after he’s there that maybe he should have taken a cab or something. Then he wonders how he’s supposed to play in the game, if he’s too distracted even to drive home.

He’ll play in the game because he has to, is the short answer, except he and Jonny are supposed to be linemates, and he sure as fuck can’t play on a line with someone who won’t even look at him. That’s why he wanted to talk it out, except Jonny was all—whatever he was. Un-Jonny-like. Horrible.

Patrick doesn’t understand what he did to make Jonny so mad. All he did was take care of Jonny while he was thirteen. Unless—maybe Jonny regrets it, the stuff he said? Maybe he knows what Patrick’s thinking, and he doesn’t want it, and he’s trying to keep Patrick from bringing it up. Maybe his thirteen-year-old self was wrong, and whatever he wanted as a teenager, he doesn’t want it anymore now that he’s back.

Or maybe he’s mad about the kiss. He was thirteen, after all. Maybe…maybe he thinks Patrick took advantage of him.

It kind of makes Patrick’s stomach twist, thinking about that, so he goes and makes himself some lunch and does some of the deep-breathing exercises he usually does before going out on the ice, and that helps a little. It makes him want to throw up less, anyway.

This will work out. Patrick and Jonny have been best friends for four years, and Patrick’s not going to let something like this ruin it. Even if Jonny doesn’t want what he said he wanted when he was thirteen. Patrick’s gone without that for a long time; he can go without it now. They can be normal.

Except that Jonny isn’t talking to him, and Patrick’s stomach aches like he’s wounded.

He cleans up from lunch and goes to work out a little. He just needs to distract himself. It’ll all be fine.

***

The game is…interesting.

Patrick and Jonny don’t play on the same line for most of it. Mostly because in their first couple of shifts, they miss so many passes to each other that Q switches them up out of disgust. But they’re on a powerplay unit together, and they let in a shorthanded goal that brings them to overtime.

Where they lose. To the Oilers.

Patrick’s in his head the whole time. He hates feeling like this while he’s playing: hates having to feel anything besides the desire to win, the single-minded focus on the game. He’s usually good at leaving other things off the ice. But it’s harder when those other things are on the ice with him.

This time Jonny changes fast after the game. Somehow he gets done with press before Patrick does, even though he’s been out for two games, and by the time Patrick’s out of the shower, Jonny’s already putting on his jacket.

It doesn’t even register for a moment that he’s doing it near Patrick’s stall. Patrick’s been so focused on Jonny that it’s not a surprise to see him anywhere. But then he realizes, as he’s toweling his hair dry, and his heart leaps, because Jonny must have come over for a reason; Jonny’s going to—

Jonny meets his eyes for maybe the second time all day. “That was B.S. out there tonight,” he says, voice hard. “You have to be better.”

And then he’s gone.

Patrick’s mouth falls open. For a moment he’s all blank shock. How could Jonny—then a thin stream of bubbling anger rises in him, grows, rushing through him until he wants to kick something just for the pure destruction of it.

“I’m going to kill him,” he says out loud.

***

He drives over to Jonny’s as soon as he’s done changing. He probably breaks a few traffic laws doing so, because it looks like Jonny’s only just gotten back himself: his coat is still on when he answers the door.

He looks shocked to see Patrick. “What the—”

“No,” Patrick says. He shoulders the door open. Jonny doesn’t resist; he backs up and lets Patrick slam it behind him. “You do not get to tell me to be better,” he says. “You don’t get to fucking shut me out all day and then blame me for us losing the game.”

“I didn’t—“ Jonny tries to say, but Patrick’s not done yet.

“What is this, you being mad at me for what happened to you?” he says. “Because, newsflash, I didn’t cause it! I did the fucking best I could, and sorry if that made you, like, _resent_ me or whatever, but—”

“No!” Jonny says, loudly enough that Patrick pauses. “No,” he says again, more quietly. “I don’t resent you.” He makes a face, like he tastes something bad. “I probably shouldn't have said that after the game.”

“Oh,” Patrick deflates a little. “I mean, yeah, fucking right, you shouldn't have.”

“I know,” Jonny snaps. “I was just…” He purses his lips. "Look, I was embarrassed, okay?”

“About…oh.” Patrick feels his own face flush.

“So thanks for coming by,” Jonny says, going to open the door, and Patrick panics.

“What? No, wait,” he says. “I don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

Jonny huffs a laugh that doesn’t have a lot of humor in it. “Um, sorry, you don’t actually get to decide that.”

“No, I know, I just…” Patrick is going to throw up, probably. “I can forget about it,” he says desperately. “I mean, I won’t, like, hold you to it. The stuff you said. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Jonny flinches a little. He doesn't meet Patrick's eyes. “You won’t, huh?”

“I know you weren’t...yourself," Patrick says. "I’m not gonna—I know you didn’t mean it.”

That does get Jonny to look at him—a swift alarmed glance. Patrick feels his cheeks blaze hotter. He hopes Jonny can’t see—

“You think I didn’t mean it?” Jonny says.

This shouldn’t be this hard. “I don’t think you were, like, lying,” Patrick says. “I just mean—obviously you don’t want it. That’s okay. I’m not gonna make it weird or anything.”

“Patrick,” Jonny says, and he looks away again, but his name in Jonny’s mouth still makes Patrick’s stomach swoop like a dip on a roller coaster. “Look, you don’t have to lie about it.”

“What? No, I really—” Patrick is breathing way too hard. “We don’t even have to talk about it. It can just be normal. I swear. Just don’t—” He doesn’t even know how to end that sentence. _Just don’t shut me out again._

“Fine. Whatever.” Jonny closes his eyes, like they pain him. “Can you at least do us both the courtesy of not pretending you don’t know I meant it?"

Patrick feels his mouth fall open. "What?"

"Like, I know you’re trying to make it easier, but—”

“No, hang on.” Patrick replays the last couple sentences, because there’s no way he heard that properly. “What do you mean, you meant it?”

Jonny rolls his eyes. “Seriously. You can stop that anytime now.”

“No, I’m just—like, all the stuff you said when you were thirteen?”

“Fucking _yes_ ," Jonny says. “What else do you think we’re talking about?”

Patrick blinks a few times. He can't get it to add up. If Jonny—if he really does want — “But then—why did you leave this morning?”

Jonny throws his hands up, boggling. “What, you wanted to have this conversation twelve hours earlier? Why the fuck would I stay when I—“

“Because I said tomorrow!” Patrick bursts out.

Jonny jerks like he’s been shocked. There’s a silence where Patrick can barely breathe. Jonny’s eyes are on his face, darting around. Patrick doesn’t know what’s showing in his expression, but—

“Oh, fuck,” Jonny bites out, and moves, quick and sudden, to back Patrick up against the wall.

Patrick’s stomach jerks hard, and he’s sure Jonny’s about to kiss him, has his mouth open in preparation. But Jonny stops inches from Patrick’s lips. “You’d better not be fucking with me,” Jonny says, breath hot on Patrick’s skin.

“No—” Patrick strains, trying to reach Jonny’s lips where they’re just out of his reach. “No, I swear—”

“Good,” Jonny says, and he leans in and takes Patrick’s mouth in a kiss.

It’s four years, maybe ten years in the making, and Patrick feels it in every inch of his body. He melts, goes boneless between the wall and Jonny’s body—Jonny’s body that’s finally bigger than him again, finally firm and strong and capable of holding him up. It’s nothing like the kiss yesterday. It’s everything like the kisses Patrick’s been imagining.

Jonny gets a hand in his hair and tugs a little to angle his head and Patrick moans. “Yeah, I thought so,” Jonny says breathlessly into Patrick’s mouth, and he tugs some more, little pulls that Patrick feels all the way down to his toes. Their dicks have joined the party, Jonny’s hard and rubbing just a little against Patrick with every gasping kiss, every tug.

“This is what I wanted to do to you,” Jonny says, hitching their hips together. “The whole time I was thirteen. Wanted to just shove you up against something and rub—”

Patrick moans again. He’s not thirteen—he should have better control than this—but Jonny’s stripping it all away. His hands are gripping Patrick’s body and making him come apart.

“Driving me crazy,” Jonny says before diving into Patrick’s mouth again. Then there’s a long while where it’s all kind of blurry and hot and so, so good—so good it makes Patrick’s toes curl. Jonny’s manhandling him, getting his clothes off, getting him down the hallway to his bedroom, and Patrick is happy to be manhandled.

“It was so fucked up,” he murmurs as Jonny strips him of his button-down in the bedroom. “You being young. Messed with my head.”

“You?” Jonny shoves Patrick’s pants to the ground. “Do you even know how many times I jerked off?”

“Don’t even tell me.” Patrick’s shivering as Jonny runs his hands back up his thighs.

“You were always around.” Jonny’s hands run up his torso, over his nipples. “Looking like you do. God, you could have done anything to me.”

“Didn’t want to,” Patrick gasps as Jonny tongues his ear. “Want you like this—” And Jonny moans and kisses him and grabs Patrick’s ass and grinds their hips together.

They end up on the bed, Jonny naked on top of Patrick, kissing him. He seems so hungry for it, like he’s been starving for years, and Patrick can’t stop running his hands over Jonny’s body. This was what he was missing when Jonny was young: the solidity of Jonny, his bulk, all the ten years that Jonny’s put into growing up. This is the body Patrick wants. He runs his hands over the ridges of muscle and hears Jonny’s little sighs and swallows them down.

“Can I,” Jonny murmurs, and a minute later his fingers are cold and slick between Patrick’s thighs. Patrick hasn’t really done this—it’s never been worth it, never been part of the life he’s let himself have. But here’s Jonny, his dick hard and red and standing up against his stomach, moisture pearling at the slit, and Patrick doesn’t know how he held off. He’s straining towards it now, pushing towards the fingers that are sliding between his asscheeks and headed towards—

It makes Patrick gasp and arch when Jonny touches his rim, and Jonny kisses him through the strangeness, his tongue in Patrick’s mouth as his fingers enter his ass. It’s strange and overwhelming and Patrick feels it breaking open the surface of him, breaking down things he’s tried to keep hidden.

“I never,” he gets out when Jonny rubs his fingers over a spot that makes his whole body tingle, and Jonny whispers, “You’re amazing,” and the tingles wash right back over him up from his toes.

They’re both dripping with sweat by the time Jonny has three fingers in him. Jonny swears while he rolls on the condom and grips himself around the base of his cock when he’s done, closing his eyes for a few deep breaths. Patrick’s trembling beneath him, but he says, “Don’t you dare,” and Jonny says, “I won’t, I just—”

“You better be in me when you come,” Patrick says, and Jonny groans and squeezes the base of his cock again. Then he leans in and kisses Patrick extra hard and pushes the head of his cock against Patrick’s hole and Patrick feels his whole body turn inside out.

It’s already been—what they’ve done up to this point, it’s already been more intense than any sex Patrick’s ever had, and when Jonny slides into him he feels like he’s in free fall, like he’s let go of everything and left the ordinary world behind. This is something else, something crazy and bigger and he wants it to go on forever. He says that: “Want this all the time,” and then Jonny starts to move and Patrick’s mouth falls open and his eyes fall shut and he has no control over whatever crazy things his body is doing. All his muscles have been lit with a blaze of pleasure, and he lets go and just feels it.

“Oh, fuck, Patrick, this is,” Jonny says, and his cock is filling Patrick up, pounding him into the other side of the world and Patrick loves it.

“Love this,” he says, and Jonny swears, and then Patrick says, “Love you,” without really thinking about it, and the next moment Jonny’s gasping and shaking and pulling on Patrick’s cock. Patrick follows him over the edge, lost in a sea of Jonny.

They tumble together in a sweaty pile, their legs tangled together. Jonny’s head is on Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick’s lips are in Jonny’s hair. Jonny has nice hair: it smells sweet, like his organic conditioner, and Patrick presses little kisses to it.

His body feels strange. Tingling, like after any good orgasm, with some added twinging in the ass area. But then there’s the rest of it: the way his chest feels open right now, like Jonny might drop into it. Like he maybe already has.

“Holy fuck,” Jonny says.

“Yeah.” There are really no better words for it.

They lie there for a while, basking in the glow, until Patrick starts to feel sticky. He moves to get up, but Jonny’s arms tighten around him.

“Hey,” Patrick says, soothing a hand down Jonny’s back. “I was just gonna get a washcloth or something.”

“Oh.” Jonny’s arms relax a little. “Sorry. Could you just maybe…stay here, for another minute?”

Patrick buries his grin in Jonny’s hair. “Don’t want to let go of me, huh?”

“Shut up, fucker,” Jonny says, but his thumb starts tracing a gentle arc against Patrick’s chest. “I just…”

“Mm?” Patrick says when he doesn’t continue.

Jonny lets out his air, gustily. “I just never thought you’d want this.”

Patrick bites his lip and presses his fingers harder into Jonny’s back. “I tried really hard not to,” he says. “I was pretty sure you’d hate me if you knew.”

“Wouldn’t,” Jonny mumbles.

“Well, no, obviously.” Patrick waves a hand at their bodies. “But, dude, I don’t know if you knew how scary you were back then.”

“Hm?” Jonny asks.

“When we were kids. You were, like, this amazing hockey god, and all I wanted was to impress you,” Patrick says. “I would have played every shift that summer if I could have gotten away with it.”

Jonny tilts his head up to meet Patrick’s eyes. He’s smiling. “You liked me when we were on the Junior Flyers together?”

The look on Jonny’s face is—Patrick could die happy from a look like that. “Duh,” he says softly.

Jonny slides up until their faces are level and kisses him again, the kind of slow eager kiss that Patrick might have thought wasn’t possible so soon after coming. But Jonny makes everything feel urgent.

They separate eventually, panting a little. Jonny rests his forehead against Patrick’s. “Hi,” he whispers.

Patrick feels his own mouth stretch into a silly smile. He can still taste Jonny on his lips. “Hi,” he says back.

“Thank you for my first kiss,” Jonny says.

Seriously, at this rate, Patrick might end up grinning helplessly forever. “Wasn’t really your first kiss.”

“It felt like it was, though.” Jonny slides a little closer, brushes their noses together. “Everything after I was thirteen was so foggy in my head, and the only thing clear was—well. I had kind of forgotten how bad it was, wanting you back then.”

“Well,” Patrick says. "Rumor has it you never really stopped.”

“Nah.” There’s a smile in Jonny’s voice. “But everything is easier to deal with when you’re twenty-three. Or easier to hide, anyway.”

Patrick huffs a laugh. “Hate to break it to you,” he says, “but I’m pretty sure Sharpy saw through you.”

“Really?” Jonny says. Then, “Fuck, he’s gonna be obnoxious about this, isn’t he?”

“Do you really care?” Patrick asks, nudging his thigh against Jonny’s groin.

Jonny shivers deliciously. “Nah,” he says, and Patrick lets himself be rolled over for another kiss that’s been a decade in the making.


End file.
